Well, we just lost our dream flat, 3 days before closing, 3 weeks before moving (across the channel). Movers booked, workers booked, paint colours chosen, ferry booked, furniture sold, French car bought and insured... and now the bank downstairs from the flat (I can't say OUR flat anymore) preempts us and buys it! And not even for banking purposes! Just so that the bank manager's mistress can have a convenient place to wash her hair and shave her skinny legs (that's what we've decided anyway). It's all perfectly legal and there's nothing we can do and no, we're not entitled to compensation.
I'm still in denial, partly. The other, more pragmatic part of me is frantically searching for a place to rent so that we can go ahead with the move. An unexciting, emergency, take-what-you-get place to rent. For how long? Who knows. Bargains like that one don't come up very often.
So we're back to renting. I'm trying hard not to think about the money and hours spent working on this. I have to deconstruct all the things I constructed in my head. Where the sofa was going to go (how GOOD it would have looked!), what colour the kitchen was going to be. How much it cost us to fly to France and back to sign the contract that ended up in the shredder. How much of other people's time was wasted.
The bottom line is... a four letter word which I won't say on here. However, I'm very much aware of the fact that this a rich person's problem. Worse things happen. We're not homeless, we're not pennyless, and we have options. And a bottle of rosé in the fridge. The world is packed with beautiful homes. After 2 days of searching, I'm reminded that it also has its fair share of incredibly ugly ones. Let's see what we end up with this time...
